Global warming has received increasing attention owing to greater acceptance of proposed theories, which include the increasing release of carbon dioxide, a green house gas. Global releases of carbon dioxide was 49 billion tons in 2004, which was an 80% increase over 1970 levels. The emissions of carbon dioxide in 2005 in the USA alone was 6.0 billion metric tons. Materials in the construction industry, such as steel and cement, generate carbon dioxide, among other toxic and/or greenhouse gases, at very significant levels. In 2002, the EPA estimates that cement production accounts for 5 wt % of the world production of carbon dioxide and ties the steel industry for being the most significant industrial contributors of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide release is attributed to three components: First, limestone decomposition, where calcium carbonate is calcined (heated) to CaO. Second, energy (about 5 million BTU/metric ton of cement) is needed to heat (drive) the endothermic limestone decomposition. Third, electrical energy needed for driving process equipment such as the rotary calciner and milling equipment. In sum, for every ton of cement produced, 1.08 tons of carbon dioxide are generated.
Also, conventional ceramic making involves high temperature processes such as calcining and sintering. The raw materials are frequently rendered reactive for materials manufacturing by powder processes such as milling, where ceramic fragments, called clinker in the cement industry, are ground from a centimeter size to a micron size. Even processes such as these are energy intensive. In 1980, milling processes for ceramic chemicals accounted for about 0.5% of the nations energy consumption.
Thus, a need exists for a better systems and/or methods for making a ceramic that can also minimize the carbon footprint, or even capture and/or sequester the greenhouse gases generated during production.
Furthermore, the post-combustion capture of CO2 (PCC) from flue-gas remains a challenge. For example, problems such as backpressures can limit the output of a power plant. Further, the capture process is frequently limited by the conditions of the combustion, which are determined by the chemistry of the fuel being burned as well as the selected combustion conditions. For example, amine-based capture methods require low temperatures for high CO2 capture efficiency, which introduces energy costs for cooling the flue gas and a CO2 footprint associated with the energy.
Thus, a need exists to establish a method that can operate over a wide range of fuel and combustion conditions without any efficiency penalty to the manufacturing concern using that combustion process, remove all of the CO2 in the gas stream in an economical fashion, consume CO2 when all contributions to CO2 generation have been considered, process materials at a cost that can be recovered by the sale of the commodities, and supply CO2 in a soluble form.